Tell me about FreeBSD

[jonessoda]

I've been using Linux for a while, but I'm looking to switch it up a little, so I've been thinking about FreeBSD.

Currently, I'm using OpenSuSE 10.2. Really, I'm just looking to switch around to try other things, although I'm not too happy with the OpenSuSE package management (it never really works quite right for me, and the updater never works).

But I have to admit I'm a little worried about hardware support. My laptop's nothing too special, probably a little over a year and a half old tech-wise, but I've heard BSD tends to lag behind Linux in terms of hardware support. Specifically, I'm worried about sound, video, and wireless internet.

Sound I've had problems with since switching to Linux until recently. The first Ubuntu release it worked with was Edgy (with alsa 1.0.11), but OpenSuSE 10.1 had that version of alsa and the sound didn't work with that (though with 10.2, which has alsa 1.0.13, it works fine). It's a pretty standard Realtek chipset, though it's got an Intel HDA chipset too, apparently?

Also, I assume one can get MP3 playback with FreeBSD, but does that come packaged or do you have to get an additional package (like with Ubuntu)?

Video is an ATI mobility radeon X1600 with the monitor running at 1280x800. Under Linux I've always had to install the ATI proprietary drivers to get it working with full 3D and full resolution, which is fine, but I can't find an ATI driver for FreeBSD.

Wireless, I've got an Intel WM3945ABG. I know it's a very common chipset, but does FreeBSD support it out of the box?

And how about Bluetooth support? Pretty well built-in? And is Adobe supporting Flash for BSD?

Finally, about the GUI. Does it come bundled with any desktop managers like Gnome, KDE, Xfce, or the like, or do you have to get those after you get it up and running in text mode, or what?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Kaido]

FreeBSD is more of a server operating system than a desktop operating system. Hardware support does lag, but then Linux is never all that up-to-date anyway. FreeBSD is all about research - research the features, research the packages, research the supported hardware. It makes a much better server system than Linux does. There are plenty of good ports for FreeBSD and it has really good Linux support. Clicky clicky:

http://www.freebsd.org/ports/

 

[Nothinman]

It makes a much better server system than Linux does.

That's very subjective and I'd have to say that in almost all cases Linux is going to be a better choice over FreeBSD.

 

[jonessoda]

Hm, looks like most of my hardware is not on the compatibility list. Oh well, I guess I might just end up playing with various Linux distros or something.

 

[Hyperblaze]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

It makes a much better server system than Linux does.

That's very subjective and I'd have to say that in almost all cases Linux is going to be a better choice over FreeBSD.

Again, that's your opinion which is also very subjective.

I've used both. Some say that FreeBSD is more stable and secure. *shrug*

If for nothing else, try out FreeBSD just to expand your horizons.

PS: I use FreeBSD for my servers, while I use Linux for my desktops. Could use FreeBSD for everything or Linux for everything. I just wanted variety.

 

[Nothinman]

Again, that's your opinion which is also very subjective.

The fact that I can get Linux support from RedHat, HP, IBM, Oracle, etc is huge compared to what you can get for FreeBSD. I don't even know of any companies that will do FreeBSD software support. Then there's the fact that the package management on all of the BSDs is absolutely terrible compared to apt/dpkg.

If for nothing else, try out FreeBSD just to expand your horizons.

If anything I'd say to try Solaris to expand your horizons, at least that's a marketable name to put on your resumè and there are things there that Linux doesn't have yet like dtrace and zfs as the Solaris people are so happy to point out as often as possible.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Again, that's your opinion which is also very subjective.

The fact that I can get Linux support from RedHat, HP, IBM, Oracle, etc is huge compared to what you can get for FreeBSD. I don't even know of any companies that will do FreeBSD software support. Then there's the fact that the package management on all of the BSDs is absolutely terrible compared to apt/dpkg.

If for nothing else, try out FreeBSD just to expand your horizons.

If anything I'd say to try Solaris to expand your horizons, at least that's a marketable name to put on your resumè and there are things there that Linux doesn't have yet like dtrace and zfs as the Solaris people are so happy to point out as often as possible.

Funny, I just got into Solaris specifically for ZFS 🙂

 

[BurnItDwn]

Perhaps OpenBSD would be up your alley?
It isn't often used as a "desktop" OS, however, I fell in love with it after I installed it on my laptop. (I have an old Sony vaio F430 p3 450.)

OpenBSD has a blob free driver for the Intel 3945ABG wireless chipset. You may have to manually install the driver for it, but it shouldn't be too much of a challenge if you're used to working in Linux.
http://kerneltrap.org/node/6650

There are available ATI drivers for the video, but I am pretty sure they are proprietary & binary only (similar to Linux), so they likely won't be "good" as the driver support for Windows.

I have no idea about bluetooth support.
I can't speak about support for your audio chipset.

I know flash works in OpenBSD (at least with Firefox)

I run Xfce on my laptop, but usually I prefer Fluxbox/Blackbox due to the smaller footprint. I went with Xfce just because I wanted a bit more eyecandy on the lappy, and the 192mb of ram I have in it is enough for Xfce with some light multitasking.

You may have issues with support for two cores if it is a dual core lappy, but I could be mistaken about that.
You may also have issues with power management or speed step if you want to use that as well.

as far as bundles go, I installed OpenBSD from a little boot ISO and then did an FTP install, once I got the core of the system up, I then went and installed packages and ports as I wanted.

I've got it all running on a 4GB partition, and there is still over 2GB free.

I also run OpenBSD on my nat / firewall box. That's mostly because pf is more fun for me to play with than iptables, at least as of recent. But I still do run my server in Linux (Slackware) because I haven't felt the need to change it, and because I still love my Slackware box.

I hope this is helpful.

 

[jonessoda]

BTW, a little off-topic, but I guess not very, question about partitioning. Is there anything I can do when partitioning so that Windows, Linux, BSD, and optionally Solaris could all draw from a common partition for files and programs? When I did my current installs, I did a 6 gb partition for the Windows install, a 1.8 gb for the Linux boot, 2 gb for the Linux swap, and then the rest was formatted for Linux. The fourth partition I mentioned is where I store most of my files, but it's unrecognizeable in Windows (and the Windows partition is unable to be read by me under Linux).

So, to avoid having to make two or three copies of the files I wanted to share, but still maintaining them on an internal hard drive (rather than an external one, which I have thought of), is there a way to set it up so that each OS can read from the same file/app partition (obviously they won't be able to run the same programs, but I'd like to only need to keep one copy of files like MP3s, .docs, PDFs, .blends, etc.)

 

[Hyperblaze]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Again, that's your opinion which is also very subjective.

The fact that I can get Linux support from RedHat, HP, IBM, Oracle, etc is huge compared to what you can get for FreeBSD. I don't even know of any companies that will do FreeBSD software support. Then there's the fact that the package management on all of the BSDs is absolutely terrible compared to apt/dpkg.

If for nothing else, try out FreeBSD just to expand your horizons.

If anything I'd say to try Solaris to expand your horizons, at least that's a marketable name to put on your resumè and there are things there that Linux doesn't have yet like dtrace and zfs as the Solaris people are so happy to point out as often as possible.

Funny. I can't stand the debian package manager. While I really don't mind the FreeBSD ports/package manager. Different strokes for different people.

I'd agree with the Solaris, but FreeBSD doesn't hurt either. I know several companies that use FreeBSD.

 

[Hyperblaze]

Originally posted by: jonessoda
BTW, a little off-topic, but I guess not very, question about partitioning. Is there anything I can do when partitioning so that Windows, Linux, BSD, and optionally Solaris could all draw from a common partition for files and programs? When I did my current installs, I did a 6 gb partition for the Windows install, a 1.8 gb for the Linux boot, 2 gb for the Linux swap, and then the rest was formatted for Linux. The fourth partition I mentioned is where I store most of my files, but it's unrecognizeable in Windows (and the Windows partition is unable to be read by me under Linux).

So, to avoid having to make two or three copies of the files I wanted to share, but still maintaining them on an internal hard drive (rather than an external one, which I have thought of), is there a way to set it up so that each OS can read from the same file/app partition (obviously they won't be able to run the same programs, but I'd like to only need to keep one copy of files like MP3s, .docs, PDFs, .blends, etc.)

IF you want to have one partition which can be globally accessible across all operating systems on there short of having your own file server would probably be a partition with FAT32 or NTFS (just make sure your kernels support that option, linux kernel doesn't by default) Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris supports windows based partitions, but Windows can't read anthing but windows.

 

[BurnItDwn]

There are quite a few utilities out there that allow you to mount ext2, ext3, etc Linux Filesystems in Windows.
You can also mount NTFS filesystems in Linux, but I don't recall how to do that as none of my machines are set up for dual boot.

 

[n0cmonkey]

FreeBSD's hardware support page. Ever since they reorganized the site I've had trouble finding it...

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn
Perhaps OpenBSD would be up your alley?
It isn't often used as a "desktop" OS, however, I fell in love with it after I installed it on my laptop. (I have an old Sony vaio F430 p3 450.)

OpenBSD has a blob free driver for the Intel 3945ABG wireless chipset. You may have to manually install the driver for it, but it shouldn't be too much of a challenge if you're used to working in Linux.
http://kerneltrap.org/node/6650

No driver install necessary, just firmware. But some people seem to be having trouble with the driver...

There are available ATI drivers for the video, but I am pretty sure they are proprietary & binary only (similar to Linux), so they likely won't be "good" as the driver support for Windows.

The BSDs only have open source support, I think (I know OpenBSD does).

I have no idea about bluetooth support.

Not on Open.

I can't speak about support for your audio chipset.

I know flash works in OpenBSD (at least with Firefox)

I run Xfce on my laptop, but usually I prefer Fluxbox/Blackbox due to the smaller footprint. I went with Xfce just because I wanted a bit more eyecandy on the lappy, and the 192mb of ram I have in it is enough for Xfce with some light multitasking.

You may have issues with support for two cores if it is a dual core lappy, but I could be mistaken about that.

In most cases you would be. 😉 I run Open on a couple of SMP machines, and dual core is basically the same. Some newer chipsets that require ACPI might cause issues, but using snapshots and enabling ACPI seems to help.

You may also have issues with power management or speed step if you want to use that as well.

I think speedstep type technologies work. sysctl hw.setperf

as far as bundles go, I installed OpenBSD from a little boot ISO and then did an FTP install, once I got the core of the system up, I then went and installed packages and ports as I wanted.

I've got it all running on a 4GB partition, and there is still over 2GB free.

I also run OpenBSD on my nat / firewall box. That's mostly because pf is more fun for me to play with than iptables, at least as of recent. But I still do run my server in Linux (Slackware) because I haven't felt the need to change it, and because I still love my Slackware box.

I hope this is helpful.

I haven't found a better firewall than PF.

 

[Nothinman]

Funny. I can't stand the debian package manager. While I really don't mind the FreeBSD ports/package manager. Different strokes for different people.

The fact that a 3rd party tool like portupgrade is necessary seems to say a whole lot about how complete their package manager is.

You can also mount NTFS filesystems in Linux, but I don't recall how to do that as none of my machines are set up for dual boot.

Just like you would any other filesystem as long as NTFS support is enabled in the kernel. If you want write support you need to look at something like ntfs-3g.

but Windows can't read anthing but windows.

Not by default, but it can: http://www.fs-driver.org/

 

[Boztech]

The reason BSD makes a better server system is it doesn't force you into upgrades. The ports collection is the same for every version. The security reviews also tend to be longer.

That being said BSD is still not the ideal free desktop OS. For those simple purposes I still recommend something Ubuntu-based.

 

[Nothinman]

The reason BSD makes a better server system is it doesn't force you into upgrades. The ports collection is the same for every version. The security reviews also tend to be longer.

You're not forced to upgrade any server editions of Linux either, RH supports security and maintenance of each of their enterprise releases for 7 years. And AFAIK ports aren't officially supported by any of the BSDs and as such don't get any of the security reviews that the core system does.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Boztech
The reason BSD makes a better server system is it doesn't force you into upgrades. The ports collection is the same for every version. The security reviews also tend to be longer.

By BSD do you mean FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonflyBSD, or PC-BSD? Because I know you're wrong with at least one of them.

That being said BSD is still not the ideal free desktop OS. For those simple purposes I still recommend something Ubuntu-based.

For whom? 😉

 

[drag]

Sound I've had problems with since switching to Linux until recently. The first Ubuntu release it worked with was Edgy (with alsa 1.0.11), but OpenSuSE 10.1 had that version of alsa and the sound didn't work with that (though with 10.2, which has alsa 1.0.13, it works fine). It's a pretty standard Realtek chipset, though it's got an Intel HDA chipset too, apparently?

Intel-HDA is the new 'standard' for audio chipsets.

It's similar to AC'97. Technically speaking you can make one set if drivers and it should work across all AC'97 hardware. This doesn't work out well in real life, but the differences are usually small enough that it's not difficult to support a new card with only small modifications.

So with the Linux Intel-hda drivers it tries to autodetect these little differences and adapt itself to different hardware on the fly so end users aren't bothered with all the dozens of different variations. There must of been a update to the drivers that caused a regression and it's being miss-detected.

Usually all you have to do is tell it specificly what variation you want to use. Most of the time the 'reference' driver should work.

Check out the ALSA-Configuration.txt in the kernel documetation for all the different variations. There are probably 40+ different variations... between 4 and a dozen or more variations each chipset. Fun stuff, but shouldn't be difficult to track down one that works best for you.

Then also in that text file they have instructions on what information to give to the developers so they can fix the bug. The file is rather large so look through it for snd-hda-intel

To use the reference variation add:
options snd-hda-intel model=ref
at the end of /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base in Ubuntu or Debian. Then reboot or reload the sound drivers.

Other common one that often works is 3stack.


You can also manually modprobe it with:
modprobe snd-hda-intel model=3stack
or whatever.

Just like you would any other filesystem as long as NTFS support is enabled in the kernel. If you want write support you need to look at something like ntfs-3g.

I wouldn't be suprised if ntfs-3g works in FreeBSD also. FUSE has been ported to FreeBSD
http://fuse4bsd.creo.hu/

 

[Boztech]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

The reason BSD makes a better server system is it doesn't force you into upgrades. The ports collection is the same for every version. The security reviews also tend to be longer.

You're not forced to upgrade any server editions of Linux either, RH supports security and maintenance of each of their enterprise releases for 7 years. And AFAIK ports aren't officially supported by any of the BSDs and as such don't get any of the security reviews that the core system does.

That's a commercial distribution, which if course FreeBSD is not.

As of Dec 12 2006, FC4 is no longer being maintained. What if, I was required to recover a server at a clients site, and all that was available for one reason or another was FC4? Or earlier? Using only vendor supplied updates, I would not be able to secure the server with an .rpm file of the latest Apache installation. Surely at some point, this will leave any new legacy installation vulnerable to some attack.

 

[Boztech]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
By BSD do you mean FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonflyBSD, or PC-BSD? Because I know you're wrong with at least one of them.

Yes, I was referring mainly to FreeBSD.

 

[Nothinman]

As of Dec 12 2006, FC4 is no longer being maintained. What if, I was required to recover a server at a clients site, and all that was available for one reason or another was FC4? Or earlier? Using only vendor supplied updates, I would not be able to secure the server with an .rpm file of the latest Apache installation. Surely at some point, this will leave any new legacy installation vulnerable to some attack.

FC has no real support at all, you can't expect the same level of support from something like FC that you can from RHEL, SuSE or even Debian. Once a set of volunteers decide to move on you either follow suit or you pay someone like RH to support your old ass software. Which is the whole point, you either pay RH, HP, IBM, etc to support your ass for 7yrs or you take it onto yourself to maintain the security of your boxes. And the fact that Apache isn't even audited or maintained by FreeBSD in anyway pretty much negates your argument that FreeBSD is better for a server.

 

[eztiger79]

Wow, I had to sign up just to respond to Nothinmans comments!

f anything I'd say to try Solaris to expand your horizons, at least that's a marketable name to put on your resumè and there are things there that Linux doesn't have yet like dtrace and zfs as the Solaris people are so happy to point out as often as possible.

ZFS and dtrace are in FreeBSD 7 (-CURRENT). Granted, not the production release...but will be soon and the functionality thats there is being used by people in production. I saw someone on the mailing lists running a 20TB array on the zfs implementation. I've tinkered myself and its certainly impressive.

The fact that a 3rd party tool like portupgrade is necessary seems to say a whole lot about how complete their package manager is.

Not necessary..it adds some niceties but you can happily get by with the base system tools. And there are significant differences between the *ports* system and the *packaging* system. I'm being pedantic now but what goes for one doesn't necessaarily go for the other.

And AFAIK ports aren't officially supported by any of the BSDs and as such don't get any of the security reviews that the core system does.

It depends what you mean by support. The ports tree is kept updated for legacy release of FreeBSD (it was just stopped for 4.x for example). THere is also a portaudit tool that allows you to scan for known vulnerabilities in your installed ports.

Security review wise - you're correct the freebsd team don't audit the code. Although alot of the packages installed include custom FreeBSD patches for various reasons.

However the *base* FreeBSD system (and this is important as it's not a concept most linux distribtuions have) is security audited. FreeBSDs methodology is very much 'we look after the bases system as thats the OS - packages are 3rd party bolt ons'.

For every release there are reasonably frequent security patch releases to address issues in the base system (-p1 etc).

Not as stringent as OpenBSD granted, but more flexible.

And yes, RedHat will do into their packages / back port issues - but then theres not as wide a choice of RPM's available.

And the fact that Apache isn't even audited or maintained by FreeBSD in anyway pretty much negates your argument that FreeBSD is better for a server.

Interesting argument - are you suggesting vanilla apache isn't good enough? It would probably be worth pointing out that OpenBSD have commited a number of security fixes to their own Apache package that the Apache foundation havn't imported into the baseline code. So, in effect, OpenBSD trumps Linux on this one 😉

Anyway...to the OP :

I didn't want to get into a flaming match about what OS is better, but some of the stuff Nothinman is monopolosing this thread with is just inaccurate or heavily bias.

Bottom line is - best tool for the job.

Yes, Linux vendors will give you commercial support but only across a limited subset (although arguably the most important) of packages.

FreeBSD has a different mentality than Linux. There is a static base system and packages are kept completely seperate. This is very different than all the Linux distrubutions I've used.

As for whats better on a server than the other - depends on the scenario.

For my working life we tend to use RedHat as large goverment contracts pretty much mandate we have vendor support where possible (and RedHats support, in my experience, is nothing short of fantastic). For my personal servers I go with FreeBSD as I, personally, prefer the methodology and attitude in how the Operating System upgrades are managed etc. I generally find it easier to deal with and don't have as much drama with it.

As for whats better on a desktop - they can both do the same thing, it will come down to hardware support. THey both use the same packages so you can do your MP3 playback etc although I'm not sure about the ATI card as I rarely run X on any machines.

Wireless and Bluetooth - no idea. I know wireless is supported but I'm not sure about your particular card.

Flash player you can use the linux one (which is in the freebsd ports tree). FreeBSD has a surprisingly functional Linux emulation layer which allows you to run most linux binaries at near enough native speed.

GUI wise it won't come with any out the box, but they're all available as packages / ports depending on your choice. I would say that FreeBSD won't 'autoconfigure' the niceties as much as Linux distributions would (i.e program menus populated, nice xdm design etc etc).

So basically they both have their place. I think Linux would be an easier path for you. But FreeBSD will do the same job with a bit more effort (which its quite open about).

As I said, give it a whirl see what happens. In terms of overall hardware support I've found their officially published list to be quite 'safe' in terms of hardware support. Alot more will actually work than they mention.

You also have the option of going 'bleeding edge' and using the FreeBSD 7 code base...which will have expanded hardware support.

Whatever you choose to do..good luck! if you need any more help shout! There is also the freebsdforums.com for help from people who know more about alot of these things than I!

 

[Nothinman]

ZFS and dtrace are in FreeBSD 7 (-CURRENT). Granted, not the production release...but will be soon and the functionality thats there is being used by people in production. I saw someone on the mailing lists running a 20TB array on the zfs implementation. I've tinkered myself and its certainly impressive.

That's fine but it would still make more sense to play with them on Solaris since you're much more likely to use them there in a real production environment.

Not necessary..it adds some niceties but you can happily get by with the base system tools. And there are significant differences between the *ports* system and the *packaging* system. I'm being pedantic now but what goes for one doesn't necessaarily go for the other.

Not necessary but it's a huge PITA to upgrade ports without it and it's way too easy to get yourself into odd situations like having 2 or 3 versions of the same package installed at the same time. The package management tools are supposed to make life easier for me not vice versa. And IIRC ports build a package and use that to install the port so they're not all that separate any more.

However the *base* FreeBSD system (and this is important as it's not a concept most linux distribtuions have) is security audited. FreeBSDs methodology is very much 'we look after the bases system as thats the OS - packages are 3rd party bolt ons'.

Yes it's very important because it means that once you venture out of the base system you're entering unsupported territory. Linux distributions are similar in that they only support a specific number of base packages but it's usually much larger, hell Debian has like 20,000 packages in it's unstable distribution and all of them are supported equally.

And yes, RedHat will do into their packages / back port issues - but then theres not as wide a choice of RPM's available.

True there probably is a larger number of ports than RPMs that RH will support but if you're paying for RH support chances are you'll happily stick within whatever limits they want.

Interesting argument - are you suggesting vanilla apache isn't good enough?

I was suggesting that using Apache packages provided for FC4 won't be good enough for the long term since that's what he was talking about.

It would probably be worth pointing out that OpenBSD have commited a number of security fixes to their own Apache package that the Apache foundation havn't imported into the baseline code. So, in effect, OpenBSD trumps Linux on this one

No, that just means that OpenBSD trumps upstream Apache. I don't have any proof either way but it's possible that some vendors have included the OpenBSD fixes (or similar ones) in their packages because upstream hasn't incorporated them yet.

 

[eztiger79]

That's fine but it would still make more sense to play with them on Solaris since you're much more likely to use them there in a real production environment.

Bit of a sweeping statement....but you're correct for some cases somewhere 😉

At the end of the day, apart from fringe features zfs is zfs is zfs.

Not necessary but it's a huge PITA to upgrade ports without it and it's way too easy to get yourself into odd situations like having 2 or 3 versions of the same package installed at the same time. The package management tools are supposed to make life easier for me not vice versa. And IIRC ports build a package and use that to install the port so they're not all that separate any more.

I wouldn't call it a PITA...but each to their own.

Having 2 or 3 packages installed at once is..err...broken. I'm not sure how you've managed to get into that state previously. Off the top of my head I can't even think how thats possible. I could see perhaps the package *database* becoming corrupted or confused - but not the actual installed port / package.

Ports do build a package, based on your make flags / options. And then do indeed install that as a package.

However there are also pre built packages available to pkg_add direct from freebsd mirrors (ala binary rpm and apt packages). The difference is very important as the binary packages are 'generically' built for all purposes and, mor importantly, are only build per FreeBSD release. So between releases of FreeBSD (6.1, 6.2 etc) you won't get any updates.

This allows you to have a consistent 'known to be good' upgrade path (individual package feature sets not withstanding) when upgrading a release. You can do the base system and then also all your packages if you so choose knowing that they've all been pre built and tested for you.

If you think there isn't much difference then I can start to see how you've ended up with a broken system if you've started to muddle packages and ports up. The differences between them in theory and in use are subtle but important. No one will recomend you mix packages and ports where possible. (this can be unavoidable unfortunately)

Yes it's very important because it means that once you venture out of the base system you're entering unsupported territory. Linux distributions are similar in that they only support a specific number of base packages but it's usually much larger, hell Debian has like 20,000 packages in it's unstable distribution and all of them are supported equally.

I think our defintions of support are different?

Debian has 20,000 packages but they don't 'support' them. You can't phone 1-800-debian and ask them how to configure <insert obscure package>. (Ubuntu claims to do this via its enterprise support, but I'd be surprised if they cover everything in theit tree - I would be happily proved wrong if they do however)

However it's supported in terms of someone on the debian package team has figured out how to build it on debian and wrapped it up with the correct dependencies for you / put the files in sensible locations.

FreeBSD is the same. Packages are built on clusters for release per FreeBSD release so they're known to compile and work.

Ports are less guaranteed but are still added to the ports tree by a FreeBSD ports maintainer with all the same guarantees as Debian packages.

True there probably is a larger number of ports than RPMs that RH will support but if you're paying for RH support chances are you'll happily stick within whatever limits they want.

Using RedHat say in and day out I can tell you this is actually one of, if not *the* major drawback of it. At times you're forced to stray out of these boundaries - at which time your support is either completely nullified (on paper if not in practice depending on how cheeky you want to be on the phone) if you've tainted the kernel with unsupported modules, or greatly reduced if you're having issues with an unsupported packages interaction with the redhat system or other redhat rpms.

As a current example we have an IBM SAN we plan to run on a cluster of RedHat machines. To keep our RedHat support we have to use the RedHat multipath drivers.

However IBM won't support that so to keep our *SAN* support we have to use the IBM fibre card drivers...which taint the RedHat kernel and invalidate our RedHat support.

So which to choose? Thats actually one of the most important questions on the project that someone is trying to answer.

However I'm confused.....I get the impression that FreeBSD has done something bad to you previously - stole some money or perhaps hurt a family pet?

You seem to dislike it with a passion - which in turn makes me wonder why you came into this thread where someone was asking for advice on it.

Also the OP just wants to stick it on a laptop - so I think our lively discussion of the relative merits of support contracts with various systems is fairly pointless.

In light of your comments above I really think you'd benefit from giving FreeBSD another try - alot of the problems you seem to have seen can be avoided. You may still dislike it but at least you'd have a more solid background from which to criticise.

At the end of the day though - linux, freebsd, solaris...supported or unsupported we'll all be using the same programs / windows managers / server daemons in the end 😛